The upside of this financial crisis and recession is that they offer all of us the opportunity to stretch our skills in our current jobs—and I mean everyone.
Change Hurts
Unfortunately, when we try something new and it doesn’t come naturally, we conclude we have no talent for it. We abandon pursuit, never giving ourselves the chance to practice and make progress. Scientific evidence, however, is beginning to show that our definition of talent is wrong.
In fact, “talent” may not mean anything at all.
The concept of talent is especially troublesome in business. We label people and then assign expectations, some unrealistic. When people are fast-tracked or deemed executive material, we assume they have special gifts. Worse, we fail to adequately emphasize the importance of continuous training and coaching.
Good to Great
Some business giants actually gave little early indication that they would become great.
Jack Welch, named by Fortune as the 20th century’s manager of the century, showed no particular passion for business, even into his mid-20s. Steve Ballmer and Jeffrey Immelt were average employees at Procter & Gamble in the 1970s, with little evidence they would go on to become CEOs of Microsoft and GE before age 50.